About a year ago or so when i was cruisin through town(new plymouth) i popped into the rock shop like you do, and there was a salesmen there with this Bass. A line six i belive, now this thing had digital patches or somthing programmed into it so with a turn of the knob you could go from a double bass to a p bass etc. And they sounded all good! Apparently there where about 30 odd basses in this bass, it wasnt cheap, but considering the versatilty id say it was reasonably priced. Has anyone had anything to do with one of these? (i was just watchin with interest as rockshop guy had a tooto) Are they as good as they look?

Yea i havnt forgotten about it, and still have a geeze if im goin past to see if theyve got one. I think it may be a bit waisted on myself really, im just a terribly impulsive person. Ive got 5 basses and have only ever gone in to buy one once, i just gotta keep the hell away from music shops. I know if i saw one again id be very tempted.... very very tempted, but ive only really heard the sales pitch from the salesmen, which dosnt tell me anything really.
Appreciate the feed back.

i know this thread is a lil old. but for the record. they suck. imho.
they just dont have the feel.
and i when i was in the rockshop, one of the rockshop sales peps was struggling to get something decent sounding to play with.
he said he himself would rather get the real deal, than the variax. he was referring to a thumb bass

Dan wrote:I've heard of the Line6 Variax guitars, but I had no idea there was a bass version! It's an old idea, its just midi, but built into the instrument rather than an add on.

Not quite correct, as from my understanding they are not midi. They are sampled off all the 22 basses and two bass synths (total 24 voices) and it basically has an on board computer that gives you the various sounds in real time, and reacts to what you do to the strings in real time. Maybe this instrument is a bit ahead of its time. But it's very very clever in my opinion.

Beggs (a Musicworks store) in Nelson were having a sale recently in Nelson because the Rock Shop were soon to open a branch there. I went to see if there were any small useful gadgets that might be on sale, with not any intention of buying a bass (is'nt that always the way!!) and was attracted to the Line Six Variax Bass (5 string version) initially by the price. On sale for only one quarter (1/4) of RRP! Once I found out a bit about it from the sales person, I then played around with it for 3/4 of an hour. It had very minor shop damage from being in the window for nearly 2 years. The plastic scratch guard was very slightly raised in the middle, but honestly, unless you look really hard you do not even notice this. My initial doubt about whether this was just a very electronic gimicky type bass gave way to how amazing, and potenially usefull it would be for some of my own varied requirements. My favourite sounds are based on: 1962 Fender Jazz bass, 1961 Fretlesss Fender Jazz, 1963 Hofner 500/1 (The type Sir Paul Mac plays), Upright double bass (very impressive, you just have to not pluck the strings to hard to get an authentic DB sound), 8 string 1968 Hagstrom H8, and 12 string 1994 Hamer B12A.
These last two on the variax give amazing sounds. The 12 string sound is described as "chiming" and being useful for filling out a bands live sound. Really like these two basses sounds.

For me quite a few of these sounds, but especially the Double bass will be quite useful from time to time. It is powered by 6 AAA batteries which last only about 10 hours. The electronics certainly chew some power. Comes with a power supply that feeds the bass via a 3 contact 6.5 jack plug lead (supplied). The power supply has a balanced XLR out. Therefore there is absoloutely no hum or buzz or any other noise. Would be great for using for recording for that reason.

If this had been marked down to only half price, I doubt I would have purchased it, because of it being such an unusual bass. But it was a steal at the price I was lucky enough to get it for. I'm certainly not intending to sell it, but I imagine in time this bass could maybe become quite collectable?

Anyhow just thought that might be of interest. The Variax bass manufacture was discontinued some time ago. Maybe it is just ahead of it's time??
Cheers
John

Dan wrote:I've heard of the Line6 Variax guitars, but I had no idea there was a bass version! It's an old idea, its just midi, but built into the instrument rather than an add on.

Hi Dan, this description from the user manuel of how the Variax bass works might be of interest to you and others, so I thought I'd put it up on this thread:

"How does it work"
"We use piezo bridge saddles, similar to the piezo pickups in many electro-acoustic guitars, to capture each individual string's vibrations. We then shape the signals with software algorithms that capture the physical and electrical properties of the instruments that we've modeled. Since this process starts with the Variax Bass's own phyiscal strings, there's no delay caused by having to detect a pitch and turn it into a MIDI note or trigger sample. There's also no issue with tracking hammer-on's, pull-off's, slides, bends,slurs, or any other techniques that are part of your style"

I am a little surprised this instrument did'nt find more general acceptance in the market place, as generally bass players are quite open to something new or a bit different, arguably more so than, for example, many guitar players!

Hope this is of interest to some. I thought it was worth reviving this old thread.
Cheers
John